New compounds easier to make, not toxic, and work at lower concentrations.

Chemists have built molecules that flush out human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) hiding inside immune cells. While these compounds do not cure the virus that causes AIDS, they could be a powerful addition to current treatments, which cannot eradicate these dormant viruses.

Current HIV treatment requires a cocktail of drugs to kill viruses replicating in T cells, and patients must regularly take their medicine to keep the virus at bay. HIV can hibernate in these cells and reemerge to infect patients if they stop treatment.

Another approach to treating HIV aims to reactivate these dormant viruses, thereby allowing the immune system (or the virus itself) to kill the cells where they are hidden. In conjunction with cocktail therapies that keep HIV under control, this approach has the potential to completely purge the virus from a patient.

Once such potential drug, called prostratin, binds to a protein (protein kinase C) that helps reactivate hibernating viruses. Chemist Paul Wender, of Stanford University, first synthesized prostratin in the lab in 2008, and the compound is being considered for clinical trials.

Bryostatin 1, a compound produced by a marine organism, might be a useful HIV treatment, too, because it binds to protein kinase C better than prostratin. But there are several concerns about using it as a potential medicine. Bryostatin is hard to come by, both in nature and in the lab. And, perhaps most worrisome, bryostatin can cause negative side effects in humans.

Now Wender and his colleagues have built seven molecules related to bryostatin, two of which are about 1,000 times more effective at reactivating dormant HIV than prostratin. These molecules appear non-toxic in early cell tests.

These “bryologs” retain chemical groups important to the potency of bryostatin, yet their synthesis is streamlined enough that the scientists can make the bryologs on a large scale. The researchers build and connect molecular fragments to form an entire bryolog. That means they can potentially change reactive groups on the fragments to enhance each compound’s effectiveness while reducing negative side effects.

The scientists treated cells that model a latent HIV infection with each new bryolog. The new compounds reactivated dormant HIV at concentrations 25 to 1000 times less than current preclinical compound, prostratin.

The researchers are currently testing the bryologs in animals. They hope these new compounds could be used as part of a treatment that eliminates all HIV currently in someone's body, whether the virus is active or not. That could be one way to completely eradicate the virus, they add.

Melissae Fellet
Melissae is obsessed with electrons, atoms and molecules. She writes about chemistry, physics and technology and holds a PhD in chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis. Twitter@mfellet

It seems that the billions of dollars spent worldwide are finally getting somewhere.Perhaps once HIV is curable, western nations might give medicines to impoverished African nations that they actually need.

An amazing accomplishment for sure, but as far as names go "prostratin" sounds like it would fall to the ground and worship the virus upon encountering it.

The chemical names of most drug compounds are usually hard or unpleasant to pronounce, and intentionally so. It allows the drug company holding/acquiring the patent to the drug to brand it with a more appealing name. That way, years down the road when the patent has expired and cheaper generics appear under the strange chemical name, people will still refer the drug by its brand name and generate (some) sales of this more expensive version.

Does this kind of treatment have an implication for "elite controllers," people who aren't immune to HIV but can manage their infection to the point that they rarely develop AIDS? Some research indicates that they have a slightly altered HLA receptors that signal an infection more visibly so the immune system can respond and destroy infected cells more quickly. I don't know if the mechanism has anything to do with the dormancy/activity of the viruses in the cells.

It seems that the billions of dollars spent worldwide are finally getting somewhere.Perhaps once HIV is curable, western nations might give medicines to impoverished African nations that they actually need.

I thought Bill and Melinda Gates were already giving this type of treatment and medicine to the nations that need it. Why so cynical?

It seems that the billions of dollars spent worldwide are finally getting somewhere.Perhaps once HIV is curable, western nations might give medicines to impoverished African nations that they actually need.

Wester countries have whole patent system to prevent pover from buying cheap medicines. So do not hold your fingers.Also western countries failed at promoting only succesfull "antidote" to HIV to this date, this is "no-sex" attitude. Selling drugs, and condoms is simply more economically viable. (No conspiracy theories here, just stating fact about human indiference mixed with greed).

Does this kind of treatment have an implication for "elite controllers," people who aren't immune to HIV but can manage their infection to the point that they rarely develop AIDS? Some research indicates that they have a slightly altered HLA receptors that signal an infection more visibly so the immune system can respond and destroy infected cells more quickly. I don't know if the mechanism has anything to do with the dormancy/activity of the viruses in the cells.

They have imune system tuned for HIV, but this chemicals should tune it to the point that would allow for complete eradication of HIV (such are hopes anyway), as compared to mere silencing HIV, which they are able now.

An amazing accomplishment for sure, but as far as names go "prostratin" sounds like it would fall to the ground and worship the virus upon encountering it.

The chemical names of most drug compounds are usually hard or unpleasant to pronounce, and intentionally so. It allows the drug company holding/acquiring the patent to the drug to brand it with a more appealing name. That way, years down the road when the patent has expired and cheaper generics appear under the strange chemical name, people will still refer the drug by its brand name and generate (some) sales of this more expensive version.

It seems that the billions of dollars spent worldwide are finally getting somewhere.Perhaps once HIV is curable, western nations might give medicines to impoverished African nations that they actually need.

Wester countries have whole patent system to prevent pover from buying cheap medicines. So do not hold your fingers.Also western countries failed at promoting only succesfull "antidote" to HIV to this date, this is "no-sex" attitude. Selling drugs, and condoms is simply more economically viable. (No conspiracy theories here, just stating fact about human indiference mixed with greed).

So "cheap cure for everyone" is dream.

Uhmm wow.. This is just wrong. HIV is a huge problem in developing countries and a significant but much lesser problem in first world countries. This "No Sex" culture you talk about does not exist. Availability of Condoms and drugs helps lower the spread of these diseases. Flat out.

That would be a short A, pro-strat'-in. But hey, at least there's an R keeping it from being prostate.

przemo_li wrote:

western countries failed at promoting only succesfull "antidote" to HIV to this date, this is "no-sex" attitude. Selling drugs, and condoms is simply more economically viable. (No conspiracy theories here, just stating fact about human indiference mixed with greed).

What do you mean never? Abstinence is highly effective for avoiding STDs. Furthermore there are uncountable tens of millions who have effectively utilized this approach. When used (which is the caveat for all approaches) it is by far the most effective approach--and cheapest.

What przemo_li said was Western nations failed to "promote" this approach. There are many things in life where humans, through trial and error, have overcome tendancies that are harmful. Obvisouly some are more difficult than others to retrain, especially if the environment is not conducive to such.

The fact is that until there is a proven treatment to cure those infected & a vaacine to prevent infection abstinence (also from IV drugs) outside of monogamous relationships and barrier protection (as a last resort) remain cheap and highly effective approaches to dealing with not only AIDS but also a host of other STDs. So until a "magic pill/shot" emerges it seems quite sensible to push these approaches.

But that ain't gonna happen due to the unpolularity this has among some social groups and just basic human nature. Just sit around a hospital some time and you will see the families of those who just passed from, say lung cancer, go out and light up. Not smoking/quiting is an option but you cannot make people choose behavior that is good for them, even after they first hand see how such choices can have horrible consequence--but that doesn't mean those approaches fail to work or are undesirable. If it were would should also seek to cease all stop-smoking programs as well.

What do you mean never? Abstinence is highly effective for avoiding STDs. Furthermore there are uncountable tens of millions who have effectively utilized this approach. When used (which is the caveat for all approaches) it is by far the most effective approach--and cheapest.

What przemo_li said was Western nations failed to "promote" this approach. There are many things in life where humans, through trial and error, have overcome tendancies that are harmful. Obvisouly some are more difficult than others to retrain, especially if the environment is not conducive to such.

The fact is that until there is a proven treatment to cure those infected & a vaacine to prevent infection abstinence (also from IV drugs) outside of monogamous relationships and barrier protection (as a last resort) remain cheap and highly effective approaches to dealing with not only AIDS but also a host of other STDs. So until a "magic pill/shot" emerges it seems quite sensible to push these approaches.

But that ain't gonna happen due to the unpolularity this has among some social groups and just basic human nature. Just sit around a hospital some time and you will see the families of those who just passed from, say lung cancer, go out and light up. Not smoking/quiting is an option but you cannot make people choose behavior that is good for them, even after they first hand see how such choices can have horrible consequence--but that doesn't mean those approaches fail to work or are undesirable. If it were would should also seek to cease all stop-smoking programs as well.

What do you mean by "promote that approach"? Is not teaching abstinence as the only or best method for avoiding pregnancy and STDs not promoting it? Let's look at thefacts. The overall pregnancy rate is higher, so it appears not to be as effective as comprehensive sex ed. I can't argue that abstinence is effective when practiced, but I can demonstrably show that when it is taught as the only option (i.e. promoted) that it helps a smaller percentage of people. If a person's aim is to only help those that share their same moral and religious beliefs, that is fine, but such policy has no place in government.

Back on topic, it's nice to see the slow but steady progress being made on HIV. I'm sure the knowledge we've gained from pursuing a cure will have unforeseen advantages down the road.

Also western countries failed at promoting only succesfull "antidote" to HIV to this date, this is "no-sex" attitude. Selling drugs, and condoms is simply more economically viable. (No conspiracy theories here, just stating fact about human indiference mixed with greed).

It seems that the billions of dollars spent worldwide are finally getting somewhere.Perhaps once HIV is curable, western nations might give medicines to impoverished African nations that they actually need.

I thought Bill and Melinda Gates were already giving this type of treatment and medicine to the nations that need it. Why so cynical?

Why should solving AIDS be up to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation? They've got a lot of other priorities on their plate. Malaria, for one. Clean water, education and other big-picture issues as well. Worse, the B&MGF won't see the bulk of its eventual funding until extant Billionaires (like Buffet) pop their clogs. Most of the commitments to provide money to the foundation are commitments to leave money behind after death. (Many of America’s wealthy have made the commitment, though sadly – and famously – avoided by the late Steve Jobs.)

I think in this case cynicism is warranted. As much as players like Elon GODDAMN Musk, (he warrants a GODDAMN as much as Nikola GODDAMN Tesla,) and Planetary Resources are private sector “angels” taking over where the public sector in the West has failed…I don’t think health care can be one of these areas.

Let’s face facts; health care provisioning in the United States (one of the only first world nations on this planet to have a private health care system) is both of lower quality and significantly higher cost per patient than any comparable nation. Other first world nations have perfectly functional public health care systems that can do wonderful things like “bring massive amounts of pressure to bear on pharma companies to drive down the cost of essential drugs.” Indeed; governments around the world cooperate on such endeavours; something we just don’t see in the Americanised health care landscape.

Another important fact here is that in order ot protect the first world against health threats like AIDS, you have to root this bugger out of the rest of the planet as well. You cannot simply “get rid of it at home;” this is a pernicious virus with a high rate of mutation. You either erase this thing from every corner of the earth, or you wash your entire investment in developing a cure down the drain.

The public sector – such as the B&MGF – simply doesn’t have the resources to handle that. Even if all the committed wealthy popper their clogs tomorrow. Eradicating AIDS – even with a cure in hand – would have to be done rapidly, often in nations and territories that are at war, hostile to medical practitioners or possessed of religious beliefs that deny the very existence of diseases like AIDS.

This isn’t a job for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Even with a cure in hand, it might legitimately be impossible even for transnational entities like the UN. That’s not cynicism, sir. That’s just the crappy parts of reality getting in the way of utopia.

Let’s face facts; health care provisioning in the United States (one of the only first world nations on this planet to have a private health care system) is both of lower quality and significantly higher cost per patient than any comparable nation. Other first world nations have perfectly functional public health care systems that can do wonderful things like “bring massive amounts of pressure to bear on pharma companies to drive down the cost of essential drugs.” Indeed; governments around the world cooperate on such endeavours; something we just don’t see in the Americanised health care landscape.

It is true that US healthcare is impressively suboptimal. On the other hand, the lack of pressure on the pharmacy companies, coupled with the (relatively) large funding of NIH, means that the US funds a disproportionately large fraction of global drug development. If the US really managed to implement a rational universal healthcare for its own citizens, it is likely that either healthcare costs in other countries would increase, or new drugs would be developed more slowly, or both.

I strongly support universal healthcare in the US, but it would have adverse consequences for the rest of the world.

Wester countries have whole patent system to prevent pover from buying cheap medicines. So do not hold your fingers.Also western countries failed at promoting only succesfull "antidote" to HIV to this date, this is "no-sex" attitude. Selling drugs, and condoms is simply more economically viable. (No conspiracy theories here, just stating fact about human indiference mixed with greed).

Those _are_ conspiracy theories.

- The patent system was invented before modern medicine, to make it attractive to develop new products.

Drug development is unfortunately tremendously expensive by all the trials needed, which is why we have no new antibiotics in the line when bacteria has developed resistance to the old ones. And copy theft makes it even worse.

However it is a two sided problem, because it is also immoral to prevent social medicine. Hence there are deals where price reduced versions or copies (IIRC) can be registered and sold.

How to solve these two problems aren't resolved as of yet.

- As others noted, abstinence efforts simply don't work, people will have as much or more unprotected sex as a result.

Condoms protect well against both unwanted pregnancies and sexual disease. Nowadays complemented by the reverse inserts for women (last I heard they worked), liberating them from male dominance in the relation.

Let’s face facts; health care provisioning in the United States (one of the only first world nations on this planet to have a private health care system) is both of lower quality and significantly higher cost per patient than any comparable nation. Other first world nations have perfectly functional public health care systems that can do wonderful things like “bring massive amounts of pressure to bear on pharma companies to drive down the cost of essential drugs.” Indeed; governments around the world cooperate on such endeavours; something we just don’t see in the Americanised health care landscape.

It is true that US healthcare is impressively suboptimal. On the other hand, the lack of pressure on the pharmacy companies, coupled with the (relatively) large funding of NIH, means that the US funds a disproportionately large fraction of global drug development. If the US really managed to implement a rational universal healthcare for its own citizens, it is likely that either healthcare costs in other countries would increase, or new drugs would be developed more slowly, or both.

I strongly support universal healthcare in the US, but it would have adverse consequences for the rest of the world.

I disagree with you entirely. Your logic is based on the faulty premise that new pharmaceuticals are either produced entirely in the United States, or only viable if they are sold into the United States. I challenge both assumptions. Canada, Europe and Australia all have top-notch biotechnology companies, including many pharmaceutical companies.

Several of these companies operate here in my hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Amongst many of these companies, (I happen to know several of the CEOs personally,) development for the US market is simply out of the question. Getting approval for the US market is difficult, time consuming and expensive. They have a far better chance of marketing their goods and growing to a large enough company to afford to even address the American market if they concentrate only on Canadian and EU regulations.

They believe that they can become not only profitable in this fashion, but make so much stupid-rolling-around-in-it money that they can then tackle US distribution. Several have been successful at this; indeed, many have grown to the point that they now operate large research departments based on the same principle.

More to the point, this is backed up by government-funded incubators. Biotech firms are well supported outside the US; and research at post-secondary institutions is far superior to that which you find within the US.

Again, I will hold up Edmonton as an example. The University of Alberta here in Edmonton is a biotech hotbed; we have come up with successful treatments for everything from diabetes to obesity, and created drugs that address dozens of illnesses. We have seen companies spun out of the UofA into their own biotech firms, supported by seed money from the government grow into some of those aforementioned large pharmaceutical companies.

Edmonton is not alone.

We don’t need US-style economics to “promote competition or research.” In fact, I honestly believe the world would be a better, more efficient, healthier and happier place without it.

American health care economics and politics – from insurance to pharma through biotech and on to clinical treatment – are a burden to this world. Your policies hinder biotechnological development, not help it. It was great and all, back in the early-to-mid 20th century. You did the world proud, then. But we have evolved since; there are better ways.

I like the idea here, there must be some chemical reaction that signals the HIV to "wake up", so it was obvious (and by obvious I mean obvious once you know the answer, like much of science) to try to figure out how to replicate that signal.

It's path that I never even thought about and this methodology should help if we encounter similar viruses that use HIV's dormancy mechanism (assuming that there aren't already viruses like that).

Biology and biochemistry fascinate me, so I enjoy reading about how people are using and abusing the chemistry inside cells to perform acts of sheer magic.

Yes, this is good news--any developments relating to HIV disease control is good news. The theory seems interesting, but for those of us who are HIV+, and have an undetectable viral load and strong tcells, must be wary. Soooo many "breakthroughs" in the last thirty-plus years. I don't see enough information about whether activating the dormant virus will enable it to be eradicated completely. How can they be sure they can eradicate the virus and not have it run rampant? There are at least some scientists who think that those of us with an undetectable viral loads may have in fact cleared the virus from our systems. The tests available widely simply can't tell.

Yes, this is good news--any developments relating to HIV disease control is good news. The theory seems interesting, but for those of us who are HIV+, and have an undetectable viral load and strong tcells, must be wary. Soooo many "breakthroughs" in the last thirty-plus years. I don't see enough information about whether activating the dormant virus will enable it to be eradicated completely. How can they be sure they can eradicate the virus and not have it run rampant? There are at least some scientists who think that those of us with an undetectable viral loads may have in fact cleared the virus from our systems. The tests available widely simply can't tell.

But i will keep an open mind. Unlike some others apparently posting.

I have to wonder if these drugs couldn't lead to a new testing regimen. If these drugs cause cells dormant HIV to reactivate, couldn’t we simply apply a suite of these drugs to a blood sample, see if the HIV expresses? In theory – and I don’t know quite enough, so I’m grasping a little here – variants on the same drug should be able to activate all the various different strains. Thus bombarding a blood sample with (?) different variants of drugs and seeing no HIV should mean the individual in question is virus free?

If the drugs become cheap enough – which should happen after the patents expire, if nothing else – then we could be looking at the beginning of a chance for people who had HIV (but no longer do) to resume a “normal” life. (I hear the drug cocktail can be pretty hard to endure, not to mention expensive.)

We might well see the first patient declared “cured” by the end of the decade!

If a person's aim is to only help those that share their same moral and religious beliefs, that is fine, but such policy has no place in government.

Someone teaching abstinence as unquestionably the most effective method to avoid STDs and pregnancy is a far cry from them trying to indoctrinate anyone into a particular belief system. Do make the distinction, though - I'm not claiming abstinence-only teaching is the most effective method of eliminating HIV, however, as far as behaviors are concerned, you really can't argue with the effectiveness of abstinence itself.

I realize this does happen from time to time (in that some groups attempt a "two-for" by introducing abstinence + religion), but guess what - Not everything is a crusade just because it also happens to match some religious teachings.

It's quite possible for me to teach a bunch of people that one shouldn't steal from another person and give a bunch of reasons why such behavior is beneficial to everyone involved, without mentioning anything religious. Same for abstinence teaching, or any other beneficial behavior.

I swear some people live life trying to be offended - they see a beneficial behavior that happens to be also taught in religious and they're offended. Go figure.

I like the idea here, there must be some chemical reaction that signals the HIV to "wake up", so it was obvious (and by obvious I mean obvious once you know the answer, like much of science) to try to figure out how to replicate that signal.

It's path that I never even thought about and this methodology should help if we encounter similar viruses that use HIV's dormancy mechanism (assuming that there aren't already viruses like that).

As mentioned above, there is shingles/chickenpox, which is caused by a herpes virus, a family of common viruses that become dormant in the central nervous system where they cannot be cleared by the immune system. The dormancy mechanism is likely different than HIV's. But being able to eradicate dormant viruses would be a huge medical advance with lots of medical benefits, nice to see efforts in this area.

I'm not claiming abstinence-only teaching is the most effective method of eliminating HIV, however, as far as behaviors are concerned, you really can't argue with the effectiveness of abstinence itself.

Sure I can; and there's a metric assload of research to disprove that abstinence is really good for anything.

cputeq wrote:

I realize this does happen from time to time (in that some groups attempt a "two-for" by introducing abstinence + religion), but guess what - Not everything is a crusade just because it also happens to match some religious teachings.

Give me one good non-religious reason for abstinence as a philosophy that is backed up by empirical data.

cputeq wrote:

It's quite possible for me to teach a bunch of people that one shouldn't steal from another person and give a bunch of reasons why such behavior is beneficial to everyone involved, without mentioning anything religious. Same for abstinence teaching, or any other beneficial behavior.

Someone teaching abstinence as unquestionably the most effective method to avoid STDs and pregnancy...

Let's just stop right there and clarify a couple of things:

A. Abstinence itself is absolutely the best way to avoid STDs and pregnancy. It is self evident.B. Teaching abstinence is not, as demonstrated by studies cited previously, and is not an automatic or logical outcome of A.

It's like saying 'the best way to avoid dying is to live'. Well, yes, that's kind of obvious, but its also incompatible with who we are as human beings.

As mentioned above, there is shingles/chickenpox, which is caused by a herpes virus, a family of common viruses that become dormant in the central nervous system where they cannot be cleared by the immune system. The dormancy mechanism is likely different than HIV's. But being able to eradicate dormant viruses would be a huge medical advance with lots of medical benefits, nice to see efforts in this area.

Didn't even think of that. Cold sores. For the love of $deity, it would be nice if we could finally erase that virus from the earth...

Someone teaching abstinence as unquestionably the most effective method to avoid STDs and pregnancy...

Let's just stop right there and clarify a couple of things:

A. Abstinence itself is absolutely the best way to avoid STDs and pregnancy. It is self evident.B. Teaching abstinence is not, as demonstrated by studies cited previously, and is not an automatic or logical outcome of A.

It's like saying 'the best way to avoid dying is to live'. Well, yes, that's kind of obvious, but its also incompatible with who we are as human beings.

Actually, there are all sorts of ways to get pregnant and/or get STDs without involving the act of sex itself. For one thing, you don't have to achieve penetration to achieve impregnation. Foreplay can result in babies; and people who believe in abstinence still want to get their freak on.

More to the point, when discussing STDs, there are all sorts of ways to catch them that have nothing at all to do with sex or sexuality. It may be one of the most common vectors; but that is only due to the vigour and frequency with which our species engages in the activity.

In face, the very history of AIDS itself (especially in the United States!) is a testament to how blood transfusions can cause a dramatic spread of such a disease in a very short period of time.

Abstinence is worthless. Education is by far – and self-evidently! – the best possible way to protect against both STDs and pregnancy.

Those who advocate abstinence might want to tell that to people who were exposed to HIV through tainted blood products and transplanted organs, or the blood of the HIV positive, such as what happens to health care providers, police, fire fighters, or the good Samaritan who applies first aid to someone that's hemorrhaging and happens to carry the virus. Sexual contact is not the only way the virus is spread . . .

I have to wonder if these drugs couldn't lead to a new testing regimen. If these drugs cause cells dormant HIV to reactivate, couldn’t we simply apply a suite of these drugs to a blood sample, see if the HIV expresses? In theory – and I don’t know quite enough, so I’m grasping a little here – variants on the same drug should be able to activate all the various different strains. Thus bombarding a blood sample with (?) different variants of drugs and seeing no HIV should mean the individual in question is virus free?

If the drugs become cheap enough – which should happen after the patents expire, if nothing else – then we could be looking at the beginning of a chance for people who had HIV (but no longer do) to resume a “normal” life. (I hear the drug cocktail can be pretty hard to endure, not to mention expensive.)

We might well see the first patient declared “cured” by the end of the decade!

I hope you are right. The drug cocktail is really hard to maintain, and as someone who has been on meds. for HIV since the early 80's, I would never want to wish them on anyone. They really are as involved as chemotherapy (I also had a stage four cancer last year). At age sixty, I note the saying of so many years ago that those of us still living with HIV are living life in dog years. But that is not the reason I decided to post again. I meant only to stress that bombarding blood with high powered chemicals will be risky. This is true specifically because HIV doesn't merely exist in blood--it apparently is in almost every type of cell.

And, please, can't people control themselves and stay on topic? The whole abstinence debate has been going on for thirty five years specifically about HIV. And, by the way, even if you believe you are in a monagamous relationship, relationships aren't always what one thinks, and they tend to last for a much shorter time these days.

But can't we at least stay on-topic, which is this new development and a new way of thinking about treatments, or even more broadly, about treatment for HIV?

It seems that the billions of dollars spent worldwide are finally getting somewhere.Perhaps once HIV is curable, western nations might give medicines to impoverished African nations that they actually need.

There are a lot more things that need to be resolved before then such as EU, Canada and United States ending agricultural subsidies so then farmers in third world countries can actually farm their land and make a reasonable return so then they can afford to pay for fertilisers/pesticides and employing more farm help. As nice as it sounds the whole idea of 'giving a hand out' one also has to realise that dependency isn't a solution going forward and in the long run no one is helped from such a situation.

What do you mean never? Abstinence is highly effective for avoiding STDs. Furthermore there are uncountable tens of millions who have effectively utilized this approach. When used (which is the caveat for all approaches) it is by far the most effective approach--and cheapest.

What przemo_li said was Western nations failed to "promote" this approach. There are many things in life where humans, through trial and error, have overcome tendancies that are harmful. Obvisouly some are more difficult than others to retrain, especially if the environment is not conducive to such.

The fact is that until there is a proven treatment to cure those infected & a vaacine to prevent infection abstinence (also from IV drugs) outside of monogamous relationships and barrier protection (as a last resort) remain cheap and highly effective approaches to dealing with not only AIDS but also a host of other STDs. So until a "magic pill/shot" emerges it seems quite sensible to push these approaches.

But that ain't gonna happen due to the unpolularity this has among some social groups and just basic human nature. Just sit around a hospital some time and you will see the families of those who just passed from, say lung cancer, go out and light up. Not smoking/quiting is an option but you cannot make people choose behavior that is good for them, even after they first hand see how such choices can have horrible consequence--but that doesn't mean those approaches fail to work or are undesirable. If it were would should also seek to cease all stop-smoking programs as well.

He's [not] saying it's not effective [or that] it doesn't work on the issue, but that the proposed solution doesn't work in society. Even Catholic priests, throughout history, have been engaged in sexual acts in spite of their vows. Teaching abstinence-only is a proven-ineffective strategy for any and all applicable situations. Full-stop.

Furthermore, your Christian bias towards monogamy illustrates a further flaw in your logic: monogamy only helps in that it reduces the number of partners; it has ZERO impact on the chances of any one partner being infected, unless they're all virgins. Which further raises another issue: there's no guarantee that the VIRGIN isn't infected, since many STIs (the current correct term; STD, and VD before it, have been deprecated for some time now) are transmissable via physical contact and blood, as well as heredity. Never mind use of an infected syringe as a weapon (in 2005 or so in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA; I remember hearing it on the news, supposedly 3 victims at a Springfield night club, but everything google is turning up is saying there's never been a confirmed case of this; it's certainly still a plausible, if hypothetical, scenario).

So at the end of the day, you're at least partially right: the only 100% effective method of avoiding an STI is to never have fluid contact with any other human-produced fluid, ever (this includes transfusions, and accidentally getting that kid's blood in your papercut).

In actual practice, as human beings, the best options are to be careful, get tested regularly (it's part of my annual physical in the military, and I have ever intention of continuing that once I separate), and use barrier protections such as condoms and dental dams. If you or your partner are not monogomous, that's perfectly fine, it simply means making sure that you and all of your partners exercise these same policies.

At the end of the day, you can either live a life, or sit huddled in a corner.

Yes, this is good news--any developments relating to HIV disease control is good news. The theory seems interesting, but for those of us who are HIV+, and have an undetectable viral load and strong tcells, must be wary. Soooo many "breakthroughs" in the last thirty-plus years. I don't see enough information about whether activating the dormant virus will enable it to be eradicated completely. How can they be sure they can eradicate the virus and not have it run rampant? There are at least some scientists who think that those of us with an undetectable viral loads may have in fact cleared the virus from our systems. The tests available widely simply can't tell.

But i will keep an open mind. Unlike some others apparently posting.

I have to wonder if these drugs couldn't lead to a new testing regimen. If these drugs cause cells dormant HIV to reactivate, couldn’t we simply apply a suite of these drugs to a blood sample, see if the HIV expresses? In theory – and I don’t know quite enough, so I’m grasping a little here – variants on the same drug should be able to activate all the various different strains. Thus bombarding a blood sample with (?) different variants of drugs and seeing no HIV should mean the individual in question is virus free?

If the drugs become cheap enough – which should happen after the patents expire, if nothing else – then we could be looking at the beginning of a chance for people who had HIV (but no longer do) to resume a “normal” life. (I hear the drug cocktail can be pretty hard to endure, not to mention expensive.)

We might well see the first patient declared “cured” by the end of the decade!

On the topic of testing as well, it would take a lot of the fear after an exposure away. As someone that is NOT infected, but has had a couple scares (condom broke with a new partner), the inability to test anytime remotely soon after infection is a lot of worry (though damned if I wasn't relieved when my results continue to come back clean). The ability to flush out the virus like this would be a massive benefit in testing and could reduce the delays and turn-around time needed.

Because let's be honest, of those of us here that are not virgins (or cputeq), who HASN"T had a condom break on them before? Maybe not everyone is as neurotically paranoid as I am about these things, but I know not having to wait for the second test a year later to say "negative" again would have been a lot less stress when that happened, heh.

Drug companies are no longer in the realm of curing people. It's not in their financial interest to do so, in fact, it would be against the law for them to not maximise their revenue on behalf of their shareholders.

this is the ugly truth and the major flaw of capitalism and the stock market.

Capitalism does have it's good points, but those who champion it blindly whilst ignoring the salient issues and flaws are simply blinded fools.

Why sell a drug that cures in a week, when you can sell drugs for the rest of that persons life.